Moving on up the road

Day 8 Windy Point Campground, Wenatchee National Forest, WA

It was a two person parade down Main Street in Ellensburg this morning as we headed out on our route.  Not often the route goes on Main St. but today it did.  This lead directly to Canyon Road, which continued on for almost 30 miles down the Yakima River canyon.  The road followed the river very closely so it wound around quite a bit and looking at the map we thought there would be a lot of wasted time and effort making the distance twice what a straight road might be.  But no, it was well worth the extra miles as this was as scenic a morning as we have had.  Just spectacular.  Talking with touring cyclists who have ridden cross country, or in a lot of states, they often will say Washington is the most scenic.  It is tough to say but Washington is definitely right in the running.  Especially at this time of year when the rivers and creeks are running full and the water is cascading down the mounatains it is hard to say what would be better.  

Tonight we are at a Forest Service campground hard by the Tieton River rushing full drowning the near-by US 12 traffic noise with a cascading stream down the mountain-side just across from our campsite.  Today riding through the canyon and then up 12 to White Pass we have been treated to miles and miles of mountain goat terrain (saw no goats, except little ones in a pasture).  Huge rocky outcrops and geometric granite walls.  Across the highway from us is  quarter mile or so of natural rock columns that look like some Greeks or Romans must have been here before us.  The rock as formed in columns without a gap between them with random heights.  See the picture above.

We rode for 45 miles before we had a place to stop for lunch.  We always look for a cafe for lunch.  This was in the very western looking and very adorable little town of Naches, WA.  We climbed several hundred feet and descended that same height at a much steeper grade to get down in to town.  On the road out to Naches we had passed a woman on her bike headed the other direction.  As we arrived in Naches, not sure where to look for lunch, she caught us and said she had hoped she would catch us so she could find out where we are headed, etc.  She had been on an out and back ride and lives in Naches.  She got us to the Sticky Fingers Cafe on the main drag in Naches and we had a great lunch there.  

The roads passed by, other than mountains, ranches and miles and miles of cherry orchards.  The apples have definitely given way to cherries and grapes.  It helps me to understand where all that fruit comes from and how there can be so much.  It is hard to convey the immensity of the growing activity past which we have peddled.

From lunch we headed out on Old Naches Highway for 5-6 miles until it connected to US 12 and then for about 8 miles we climbed the very manageable grade toward White Pass to our campground.  Tomorrow we will go over White Pass and continue on toward Mount Rainier.  We are not going to Rainier but will be passing by and if the weather is favorable should have some fairly up close views.

So far we are on schedule and the riding, other than Rainy Pass has been quite good.  We can hope for more to come and hope the winds stay favorable as they were today.